Interviews By Jesse Pearson
Photographs Courtesy of NASA and The US Geological Survey BLACK HOLES
Vice: I’ve always wanted to ask somebody who is an astrophysicist to explain black holes to me as if they were explaining it to a ten-year-old. Use the simplest terms possible.
Mark Reid: And how are black holes created?
It’s called Sagittarius A*, right?
How can a black hole gather matter?
OK. And the location of our own supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*, is determined by the behavior of things around it, right? There seems to be a gravitational force that stars around the constellation of Sagittarius are sort of circling?
So if there are these stars orbiting something that isn’t visible, it’s a good guess that there’s a black hole there.
There’s a pop-culture and pop-science obsession with black holes as terrifying things.
Where do you think that reputation originates?
It does. Can you tell me the potential catastrophic scenarios that surround supermassive black holes? Are there any really realistic ones?
laughs What would the nature of the destruction be? How would it function?
At which point we would become a frozen rock.
Are there other astrological doomsday scenarios that are more likely than those concerning black holes?
But we can rest easy in terms of black holes?
What are some of the current specific topics that are being discussed among people who specialize in black holes?
Do black holes have sort of a life span? I mean, are there ends to black holes?
So if that’s the case, then in billions of years do black holes consume the universe?
The sun will die way before that, then.
I wish I could be around for that.
Dr. Who Romantic.
million
The Biggest Bangs Vice: Please tell me just what a gamma-ray burst is.
Jonathan Katz: How could these possibly be a threat to us?
Are they?
How long would it last in the sky?
Right. Those are also something that people fear as potential bringers of doom.
Oh, that’s interesting.
So pilots and air stewards are getting constant doses of cosmic rays?
There’s a hypothesis that one of Earth’s minor extinctions—the Silurian Ireviken—could have been the result of a gamma-ray burst.
That’s what our black-hole expert told us as well.
Right.
So with a comet, it enters our inner solar system and we say, “Oh, we’ve got about two months”?
OK, so just to confirm: As someone who knows a lot about gamma-ray bursts, you’re telling me that near-Earth objects are a much more viable doomsday scenario.
Was there an epiphanic moment when you decided you were going to become an astrophysicist?
So like a lighthouse, it’s rhythmic and measurable—
What’s your daily focus now?
Oh, speaking of catastrophes and doomsday.
When I was looking into you before we spoke, I read this article that you wrote 11 years ago called “Don’t Become a Scientist.” It talks about a different kind of catastrophe, which is the shrinking of the scientific community in terms of jobs.
So you stand by that article 11 years later?
You’re a realist.
Physics of the Solar Corona Vice: Can you give me a quick Solar Flares 101?
Markus Aschwanden: How frequently do they happen?
So once that polar shift happens on the sun, the cycle begins again and it rebuilds to the solar maximum?
Is the dynamo sort of the battery of the sun?
Is it sort of like an EMP?
You know, a lot of the more extreme survivalist types believe in the possibility of a solar flare shutting down the power grid of the Western world and society being thrown into chaos as a result of that.
I live in Manhattan and was here for that blackout. People simply dealt with it. Society did not collapse. Looking back, it was all drum circles. The city devolved into Burning Man for a night.
I’m getting the sense from talking to various astrophysicists about their areas of expertise that we don’t have much to fear from these astrophysical phenomena.
Do you know when you decided to become an astrophysicist?
What’s your relationship with science fiction like?
Star Trek
Vice: I’m starting to get the sense that asteroids and comets are the most feasible space-generated doom bringers.
Dave Williams: Isn’t the Chesapeake Bay partially an asteroid crater?
And of course, one of the most accepted theories for the extinction of the dinosaurs is an asteroid strike.
And then, once in a great while, something significant hits.
When we talk about the catastrophic effects of something like this, we’re talking mostly about the debris it sends into the atmosphere. Those effects are more lethal in the long-term than the impact.
I’ve been told that comets are scarier than asteroids as near-Earth objects because they’re unpredictable.
And it’s heading back our way.
The major asteroid that’s being tracked right now, the one that’s known as Apophis, is supposed to come very close to us in 2029 and then possibly impact us in 2036. Is that right?
But however farfetched, that is threat number one right now—ruling out some comet that could get blasted out of the Oort cloud at us.
Can you tell me a little about what your daily work is like?
How much energy and time do you think NASA spends on keeping up with potential near-Earth objects that could be catastrophic in nature?
It would be hard to justify to taxpayers, I’m sure.
How far back does your interest in these things go?
That’s interesting. It’s sort of theoretical and not theoretical.
Since you know geophysics I may as well bring this up with you. After researching all of these potential astrophysical doomsday scenarios, it seems that a more valid scenario for catastrophe is actually a terrestrial thing—the Yellowstone Caldera.
Something has to come due, basically, whether it’s earthbound or from space.
A cynic would say that we’re a lot more likely to destroy each other before something else destroys us.
It’s interesting that often when science enters popular culture in terms of entertainment, it’s about Earth being laid to waste.
So the idea is to look at asteroids as a contributing factor to evolution. Like, maybe we wouldn’t be here without them.
Paul Doss: And what is distinctive about calderas?
How rare are calderas?
Please tell me a little bit about the scale of the Yellowstone caldera.
laughs There is nothing like it on Earth.
Did that lack of a classic caldera shape make it hard to discover?
Can you give me some sort of idea of the dimensions of the caldera?
And is there any kind of way to measure or even hypothesize the volume of the caldera’s last eruption?
But didn’t the surface area covered in Yellowstone’s last catastrophic eruption stretch all the way down to the southern states?
When was Yellowstone’s last catastrophic eruption?
Wow. So I guess that brings us nicely to the next topic, which is, what sort of a time line is at play here?
OK… I don’t know why, but I almost feel disappointed.
Let’s start with the earthquakes.
And it’s much more of an imminent possibility than the caldera going off?
And what can you tell me about steam explosions? I haven’t really read much about those.
Are Yellowstone’s geysers sort of symptomatic of the caldera beneath the surface?
Even though it is not a possibility for a very long time, could you humor me and tell me what the potential doomsday scenario would be if the caldera were to go?
Only a bit.
Compared with a potential 1,000 from Yellowstone.
Saying what? “You guys need to handle this shit?”
Yellowstone is incredibly volatile in so many ways.
Photographs Courtesy of NASA and The US Geological Survey BLACK HOLES
Videos by VICE
Mark Reid: And how are black holes created?
It’s called Sagittarius A*, right?
How can a black hole gather matter?
OK. And the location of our own supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*, is determined by the behavior of things around it, right? There seems to be a gravitational force that stars around the constellation of Sagittarius are sort of circling?
So if there are these stars orbiting something that isn’t visible, it’s a good guess that there’s a black hole there.
There’s a pop-culture and pop-science obsession with black holes as terrifying things.
Where do you think that reputation originates?
It does. Can you tell me the potential catastrophic scenarios that surround supermassive black holes? Are there any really realistic ones?
laughs What would the nature of the destruction be? How would it function?
At which point we would become a frozen rock.
Are there other astrological doomsday scenarios that are more likely than those concerning black holes?
But we can rest easy in terms of black holes?
What are some of the current specific topics that are being discussed among people who specialize in black holes?
Do black holes have sort of a life span? I mean, are there ends to black holes?
So if that’s the case, then in billions of years do black holes consume the universe?
The sun will die way before that, then.
I wish I could be around for that.
Dr. Who Romantic.
million
The Biggest Bangs Vice: Please tell me just what a gamma-ray burst is.
Jonathan Katz: How could these possibly be a threat to us?
Are they?
How long would it last in the sky?
Right. Those are also something that people fear as potential bringers of doom.
Oh, that’s interesting.
So pilots and air stewards are getting constant doses of cosmic rays?
There’s a hypothesis that one of Earth’s minor extinctions—the Silurian Ireviken—could have been the result of a gamma-ray burst.
That’s what our black-hole expert told us as well.
Right.
So with a comet, it enters our inner solar system and we say, “Oh, we’ve got about two months”?
OK, so just to confirm: As someone who knows a lot about gamma-ray bursts, you’re telling me that near-Earth objects are a much more viable doomsday scenario.
Was there an epiphanic moment when you decided you were going to become an astrophysicist?
So like a lighthouse, it’s rhythmic and measurable—
What’s your daily focus now?
Oh, speaking of catastrophes and doomsday.
When I was looking into you before we spoke, I read this article that you wrote 11 years ago called “Don’t Become a Scientist.” It talks about a different kind of catastrophe, which is the shrinking of the scientific community in terms of jobs.
So you stand by that article 11 years later?
You’re a realist.
Physics of the Solar Corona Vice: Can you give me a quick Solar Flares 101?
Markus Aschwanden: How frequently do they happen?
So once that polar shift happens on the sun, the cycle begins again and it rebuilds to the solar maximum?
Is the dynamo sort of the battery of the sun?
Is it sort of like an EMP?
You know, a lot of the more extreme survivalist types believe in the possibility of a solar flare shutting down the power grid of the Western world and society being thrown into chaos as a result of that.
I live in Manhattan and was here for that blackout. People simply dealt with it. Society did not collapse. Looking back, it was all drum circles. The city devolved into Burning Man for a night.
I’m getting the sense from talking to various astrophysicists about their areas of expertise that we don’t have much to fear from these astrophysical phenomena.
Do you know when you decided to become an astrophysicist?
What’s your relationship with science fiction like?
Star Trek
Vice: I’m starting to get the sense that asteroids and comets are the most feasible space-generated doom bringers.
Dave Williams: Isn’t the Chesapeake Bay partially an asteroid crater?
And of course, one of the most accepted theories for the extinction of the dinosaurs is an asteroid strike.
And then, once in a great while, something significant hits.
When we talk about the catastrophic effects of something like this, we’re talking mostly about the debris it sends into the atmosphere. Those effects are more lethal in the long-term than the impact.
I’ve been told that comets are scarier than asteroids as near-Earth objects because they’re unpredictable.
And it’s heading back our way.
The major asteroid that’s being tracked right now, the one that’s known as Apophis, is supposed to come very close to us in 2029 and then possibly impact us in 2036. Is that right?
But however farfetched, that is threat number one right now—ruling out some comet that could get blasted out of the Oort cloud at us.
Can you tell me a little about what your daily work is like?
How much energy and time do you think NASA spends on keeping up with potential near-Earth objects that could be catastrophic in nature?
It would be hard to justify to taxpayers, I’m sure.
How far back does your interest in these things go?
That’s interesting. It’s sort of theoretical and not theoretical.
Since you know geophysics I may as well bring this up with you. After researching all of these potential astrophysical doomsday scenarios, it seems that a more valid scenario for catastrophe is actually a terrestrial thing—the Yellowstone Caldera.
Something has to come due, basically, whether it’s earthbound or from space.
A cynic would say that we’re a lot more likely to destroy each other before something else destroys us.
It’s interesting that often when science enters popular culture in terms of entertainment, it’s about Earth being laid to waste.
So the idea is to look at asteroids as a contributing factor to evolution. Like, maybe we wouldn’t be here without them.
Paul Doss: And what is distinctive about calderas?
How rare are calderas?
Please tell me a little bit about the scale of the Yellowstone caldera.
laughs There is nothing like it on Earth.
Did that lack of a classic caldera shape make it hard to discover?
Can you give me some sort of idea of the dimensions of the caldera?
And is there any kind of way to measure or even hypothesize the volume of the caldera’s last eruption?
But didn’t the surface area covered in Yellowstone’s last catastrophic eruption stretch all the way down to the southern states?
When was Yellowstone’s last catastrophic eruption?
Wow. So I guess that brings us nicely to the next topic, which is, what sort of a time line is at play here?
OK… I don’t know why, but I almost feel disappointed.
Let’s start with the earthquakes.
And it’s much more of an imminent possibility than the caldera going off?
And what can you tell me about steam explosions? I haven’t really read much about those.
Are Yellowstone’s geysers sort of symptomatic of the caldera beneath the surface?
Even though it is not a possibility for a very long time, could you humor me and tell me what the potential doomsday scenario would be if the caldera were to go?
Only a bit.
Compared with a potential 1,000 from Yellowstone.
Saying what? “You guys need to handle this shit?”
Yellowstone is incredibly volatile in so many ways.
